- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A honey bee apparently stung a 47-year-old father on his foot and he went into anaphylactic shock. Rushed to the hospital, he died 10 days later when his kidneys and heart failed. The article reported he was 6 feet, five inches tall, and weighed 17 stones, which is 238 pounds. (One stone equals 14 pounds).
His family indicated he was unaware of his allergic reaction to bee stings.
A sad and tragic case, indeed.
We know of people who have suffered severe allergic reactions and were raced to the hospital in time and fortunately survived. One was a Northern California parks employee who did not know he was allergic to bee stings.
How many people in the United States are allergic to honey bee stings? Approximately one or two out of every 1000 people, says Extension Apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "The severity of the response, to even a single sting, varies considerably from person to person."
Immediate injections with epinephrine will usually delay the possibility someone unable to breathe. Then a quick trip to a hospital where medical personnel can administrate antihistamines, steroids "and likely more epinephrine" are in order.
"While honey bees away from their hives normally do not pose too much of a sting threat, if the bees are intoxicated by exposure to certain pesticides, they can become an abnormal sting threat at distances quite a ways from the hives. Additionally, individuals who fear a sting, with good reason, sometimes are more apt to try to shoo the bee away. If a bee already is close to stinging, the additional movement of the 'shooer,' or if there is contact with the bee, results in a much greater likelihood of a sting."
Another piece of good advice that Mussen offers: "Individuals who do not appreciate attention by bees should do everything they can to not smell good to a bee. The use of flower-scented or bee products-scented soaps, shampoos, perfumes, or colognes should be avoided. There is no documented scientific study that suggests that honey bees can detect the odor of fear in humans. But if we watch from a distance, the physical reactions of fearful people often tend to be more likely to cause stings than the behavior of the rest of us."
Photographers who capture images of worker bees foraging in flowers are often asked if they've ever been stung. After all, they're just inches away from them. The usual answer: No. The bees are too busy gathering nectar and pollen for their colonies. Stings can and do occur when the worker bees are defending their hives. Or when you accidentally step on one.
Read Mussen's information on bee and wasp stings on the UC Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What are the indirect effects of parasites and pesticides on pollination service?
Ecologist Sandra Gillespie, a postdoctoral researcher in the Neal Williams lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present the results of her research at a departmental seminar from 12:10 to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 16 in 122 Briggs Hall. It will be recorded for later posting on UCTV.
“Whether in natural or agro-ecosystems, researchers are increasingly viewing positive interactions such as pollination in a broader context rather than as isolated pair-wise interactions,” Gillespie says. “In natural ecosystems, my research has explored how incidence of parasites and diseases of native bumble bees may affect pollination of plants in old-field meadows in Massachusetts. High incidence of certain parasites reduced pollination of bumble bee-dependent wild plants, suggesting that parasitism may impact pollination service to native plants and crops.”
“In a more applied context, I examined the effects of field management decisions, including pesticide use and irrigation practices, on pollination service in onion seed production in California. High insecticide use, even pre-bloom, as well as reduced irrigation negatively impact pollinator visitation in this crop, highlighting the importance of considering the indirect effects of management on the pollination process in agro-ecosystems.”
Gillespie delivered a similar presentation at 2012 meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America.
Gillespie, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis since 2011, received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and her doctorate in both entomology and organismic and evolutionary biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
As a postdoc in the Williams lab, Gillespie is examining the mechanisms behind yield declines in hybrid onion seed production in California, with the goal of developing sustainable recommendations for producers.
Gillespie will be leaving UC Davis the first week of December; she has accepted a position at Simon Fraser University (starting Jan. 1) to work as a postdoc with Elizabeth Elle in the biology department. "I'll be studying pollinator-mediated selection in a community and landscape context," she said.
Her research on “Factors Affecting Parasite Prevalence among Wild Bumble Bees,” was published in Ecology Entomology, 2010. She has also published her work in the American Journal of Botany (“Variation in the Timing of Autonomous Selfing among Populations that Differ in Flower Size, Time to Reproductive Maturity, and Climate,” 2010) and Annals of the Entomological Society of America (“Laboratory Rearing of North American Tiger Beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae: Cicindelinae,” 2011).
Pending publication in the Journal of Economic Entomology: “Insecticide Use in Hybrid Onion Seed Production Affects Pre- and Post-Pollination Processes,” the work of Gillespie, Neal Williams, Rachael Long and Nicola Seitz.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a topic we've all been waiting for: "Honey Bee Health and Disease Resistance."
Jay Evans, a research entomologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Beltsville Bee Research Laboratory for the past 14 years, will discuss "Bee Disease Resistance and Colony Health" on Wednesday, Oct. 2 to open the fall seminar series hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
His lecture, open to all interested persons, is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, located on Kleiber Hall Drive, UC Davis campus.
"Honey bees are vulnerable to poor nutrition, parasites and pathogens, and exposure to chemicals," Evans said. "These threats can occur in batches and little is known about the impacts of multiple challenges to honey bee health, and about the abilities of bees to fend off these threats. I will present recent work aimed at determining the impacts of multiple parasites on bee health. I will also discuss the impacts Varroa mites, chemicals, and bacterial symbionts on bee health and colony losses."
As a research entomologist, Evans has focused his projects on a range of bee pests including bacteria, fungi, viruses and, mites, and beetles. He is especially interested in the immune defenses of bees toward these threats.
Evans was an early proponent of the Honey Bee Genome Project and helped recruit and organize scientists interested in applied genomics for bees. He has improved and applied genetic screens for possible causes of colony collapse disorder and is now heading a consortium to sequence the genome of the Varroa mite in order to develop novel control methods for this key pest.
Evans holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Princeton and a doctorate in biology from the University of Utah.
The fall seminars, coordinated by faculty members Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson, will be held every Wednesday noon through Dec. 11 in 122 Briggs Hall, except for Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Week, when no seminar will be held.
Under the coordination of professor James R. Carey, all seminars are to be videotaped and posted at a later date on UCTV.
Anyone with a computer can view the seminars, and yes, they're free.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's critical issue.
Mussen, an Extension apiculturist based at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology since 1976, says malnutrition is a major factor in the declining bee population. That, along with pesticides, pests, diseases and stress.
"You, no doubt, have lost track of how many times I have stated that malnutrition is a leading factor in our unacceptable annual bee colony loss numbers," Mussen writes in the latest edition of his bimonthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries, available free on his website.
"I have also stated innummerable times that our synthesized bee diets just cannot match the value of nutrients obtained by bees from a mixture of quality pollens. My concern has been that although we have a very good idea of the protein requirements for honey bees, the rations of essential amino acids honey bees require, and their required vitamins and minerals, etc., we still cannot feed bees on our best diets and keep them alive more than two months in confinement."
"Thus, we are missing some very critical components in our synthesized diets. If we could find those components, could we formulate a diet that would sustain bees in a healthy condition during 'feedlot beekeeping'?"
Mussen touches on a recent study that shows a component in honey, p-coumarin, stimulates "the honey bee immune system to work better."
However, it's not the honey that's doing this.
"Actually," Mussen says, "that chemical is a contaminant of honey that comes from pollen grains that are mixed into the honey during the bees' processing cycle. Thus, the bees need only to consume the pollen to obtain the desired results. How many other minor chemicals are there in pollens that are so useful to honey bee health?"
You'll want to read what he says about floral pollens containing microbes. "If these microbes are really so important to the nutritional needs of honey bees, what are we doing when we introduce antibiotics and fungicides into the system?"
Bottom line: we need more research to see what's going on with pesticide exposures and reduced microbial levels.
Or as Mussen says: "As researchers continue to try to improve upon our supplemental bee feeds, they have to consider the possibility of inoculating a semisold formulation of the diet with fresh pollen and stored pollen so that a natural microbial complex can do its things and make the food appropriately fit for consumption by honey bees."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The world's "100 Most Endangered Species" are back in the news again, and well they should be.
Back in 2012, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Zoological Society of London released a list of the 100 Most Threatened Species when the IUCN World Conservation Congress met in South Korea.
It's good to see the list is still making the rounds. A slide show posted this week by Huffington Post should keep it in the spotlight. Last year Live Science listed them.
That means more attention to Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklinii), a critically imperiled bumble bee that UC Davis native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp has monitored since 1998.
Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, says the distinctively marked bumble bee has the most restricted range of any bumble bee in the world. Its habitat is--or was--a small area of southern Oregon (Douglas, Jackson and Josephine counties) and northern California (Siskiyou and Trinity counties).
Franklin’s bumble bee frequents California poppies, lupines, vetch, wild roses, blackberries, clover, sweet peas, horsemint and mountain penny royal during its flight season, from mid-May through September. It collects pollen primarily from lupines and poppies and gathers nectar mainly from mints.
Thorp and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation are the forces behind the Franklin's bumble bee campaign to find it and protect it. See the Xerces website for more information about the bee.
Thorp sighted 94 in 1998; 20 in 1999; 9 in 2000 and only 1 in 2001. Sightings increased slightly to 20 in 2002, but dropped to 3 in 2003. Thorp saw none in 2004 and 2005; one in 2006; and none since. Now scores of people from all walks of life are looking for it, but no one has found it.
Franklin's bumble bee is one of several insects on the worldwide list. The other species include several butterflies, Actinote zikani, Parides burchellanus and Pomarea whitneyi; the Seychelles Earwig (Antisolabis seychellensis); Beydaglari Bush-cricket (Psorodonotus ebneri); and a damsel fly (Risiocnemis seidenschwarzi).
Or Franklin's bumble bee.
